Director - Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg is one of the most influential film personalities in the history of film, he is perhaps one of Hollywood's best known directors, and is perhaps one of the most wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has countless big-grossing, critically acclaimed credits to his name as a producer, director and writer.

One of his first major directorial efforts was The Sugarland Express (1974), this film marked his as a rising star, it was however his next effort that made him an international superstar among directors, this film was Jaws (1975). In 1982 he produced and directed two films, the first was Poltergeist, however the highest grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. The Extra - Terrestrial.

Steven Spielberg has always interested me when it came to directing, I like the style that he has, when watching one of his films you automatically know that it is him that directed the film. All the films that he has directed have a specific tone to them.

I like the colours that Spielberg uses, in my drama I too want to use similar colours to what he has used, I think these colours would go well with my chosen scenes and help to make it more dramatic and go well with the storyline.

Supernatural - TV Drama

8.6/10

Creator: Eric Kripke 

Seasons: 11 (2005 - Present) 

Directors(most frequent): Robert Singer (33 episodes - 2005-1015) Philip Sgriccia (33 episodes - 2006 - 2015) Kim Manners (17 episodes - 2005 - 2008)

Main Cast: Jarad Padalecki (as Sam Winchester) Jensen Ackles (as Dean Winchester) Misha Collins (as Castiel) Jim Beaver ( as Bobby Singer) 

Two brother follow in their fathers footsteps as 'hunters' fighting off evil supernatural beings of many kind including monsters, demons and gods that roam the earth. 

I chose this series too because it is also similar to my drama, even though in my drama they are not fighting off supernatural beings, the tone is very similar and the directing style, both series are quite dark and there is a lot of similarities centred around both. 

Terra Nova - TV Drama

6.8/10 

Creator: Kelly Marcel and Craig Silverstien 

Seasons: 1 (2011) 

Directors: Jon Cassar (5 episodes) Karen Gaviola (2 episodes) Alex Graves (2 episodes) Nelson McCormick (2 episodes) Bryan Spicer (2 episodes) 

Terra Nova follows the Shannon family, they are an ordinary family from 2149, when the planet is dying they are transported back 85 million years to prehistoric earth where they join Terra Nova, A colony of humans with a second chance to build a civilizations. 

I chose this series because I think that it is similar to my chosen drama in many ways, the directing style seems similar. In this series, it is set in the future and they are sent back in time to try and help rebuild the planet in their future, whereas my drama series they are set in current time but a parallel universe has been created and the main cast have to try and find things that stop people from entering and interfering with the parallel universe. 

I found that the tone used in both of these series are similar too, they are both quite dark with some bright spots with certain episodes, I want to focus on the tone of both the series because I feel it is a large aspect to my chosen drama.

Directions: Drama: Location Recce

When decided what locations I want to use for my drama piece, I looked into what locations were used in the original series scenes. The first scene takes place in a location that looks to be near an abandoned building, I however could not find any locations like this around the Medway area so I have decided that I will be filming in the woods, the location is similar to the original. I wanted to keep this scene simple and I found that filming in the woods will do this, the two characters can interact without any interruptions. The scene is also filmed at night and I found that, that would be a little hard so I have decided to film in the evening when there is still some natural light but it doesnt make it to bright if I were too filming during the day. The second location that is used is the park in the second scene, I have decided that I will stick to the original location and film in a park, I have found many parks that I think would be a good place to film and have narrowed it down to one park that I would like to film at, this scene is going to be filmed throughout the day. The last location I have quite figured out where that will be filmed, I want to try and keep it close to the original scene but that is proving to be harder than I thought, I have tried to find some places that are similar to the room, but I think I am going to have to steer away from that location completely. Instead I was thinking about filming in a basement instead as that seems to be the closest thing to the original location, the basement lets off as a cold, isolated room and that is what the location in the last scene lets off and I wanted to try and keep that sense in my drama.

Directions: Drama: Script Scenes

This is the first scene that I have chosen to recreate, I feel this works well with the directors style, throughout the show I thought that the directors always wanted to show what was really between Peter and Olivia, this scene portrays that really well, it shows that Peter really cares for Olivia but he knows that the Olivia standing in front of him really isnt his Olivia.

This is the second scene that I will be recreating.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is another photographer that I came across while researching different artists. His work explores the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement flourished in the 1960's. 

Andy worked on something called Camouflage Self Portrait, this the photo above Andy had combined a polaroid photo of himself and layered it with a hot pink and red camouflage pattern, contrasting the individuality of portraiture with the uniformity of camouflage. The picture stares out at the viewer and is screened with that offers the illusion of personal protection but could also imply danger. This piece of art is within a series of camouflage paintings and was created in 1986. Andy was intrigued by the use of camouflage in the military and in fashion as an ambiguous instrument that could either conceal or call attention to the wearer. 

Shot list - Self Portrait.

- Long shot, pan across the beach - me walking along the beach shore line, listening to music.
- Long shot, me walking across the beach,
- Medium shot, I enter a room, photographs hanging around the room.
- Medium close up - I walk further into the room, I look around, - camera looks around the room acting as my point of view.
- Extreme close up - I pull my phone out and turn my music off.
- Medium shot, I walk up to some pictures and pull them off the wall looking at them.
- Extreme close up - See me looking through the pictures in my hand.
- Medium shot - I flip through the pictures before placing them on the floor.
- Long shot - I walk out of the room and into another room.
-Medium shot - I enter a room where music is playing, I walk over to where the music is playing from.
- Medium shot - I pick up the Ipod and stop the music and then scrolling though.
- Close up - Me scrolling through the songs to find there all the artists that I like.
- Medium shot - I place the Ipod back down and walk out the room and into the last room.
- Medium shot - I walk into the room to see a camera on the floor, I walk over to it picking it up.
- Close up - Me turning the camera on and looking through the pictures.
- Long shot - I walk out the room with the camera in hand and end up back on the beach.
- Long shot - I walk towards the water and take a photo.
- End credits.

This is just a rough outline of my shotlist, I will be doing a much more detailed one. When filming my self portrait I would like to use every day sounds instead of background music, such as the sounds of the waves.

Storyboard

I decided that  I would create a storyboard instead of a script for the self portrait film, this is because I dont really have a storyline behind this, I have decided that I just want to show a montage of the three things that I like most, this being the beach, music, photography and my past memories of my childhood and friends. 

I havent gone into too much detail with the storyboard, I have just shown a basic outline of what I would like to happen in the film, with this I can visualise better what I want to happen, and when the time comes to filming I will know what to film within each scene instead of spending time thinking about what I want to be in each particular scene. 

In the storyboard there is a brief description of what I would like to happen and the kind of shots that I want to be taken, I have done this so my camera operator knows what shots to use when the times comes. 

I have numbered each scene so I know what order they go in, this will help me when the times comes that I need to film, I found that using a storyboard in the first project made it easier to film and not go off track, so I hope that it helps me more within this project. 

Casting

I have decided that I will not be casting any actors or actresses to be in my self portrait, I have decided that I will cast in the film myself, I chose to do this because I wanted to portray who I am the best I could and because I feel that the film is going to be quite personal to me with there being pictures of me from my childhood so I thought it would be best for me to do it myself.

The video that I am doing has no dialogue with not much of a story being told. The story of the film itself is going to be more of a montage of clips showing what I like the most and what i feel best describes who I am as a person.

Mood Board

As a part of my research I have collected some images similar to ones that I would like to recreate when it comes to filming my self portrait, I have placed these images into a mood board to create the sort of tone that I would like to portray. The images that I have selected are similar to the type of shots that I want to recreate. Some of the shots a scenic shots, these are there to help me create a certain type of atmosphere and to help get across what type of scene I want to set, these type of shots I will use to help establish what I am filming and lets the audience know exactly where I am. Other shots are the things that I would like to include into my film, they are the things that I enjoy the most, the shots are also to help set what sort of colour tone I would like my film to be, I love the tone of natural light.

For my ending shot I would like to have myself stood at the beach, preferbally at night, or if this does not work then at sunset, stood in the distance with a camera taking a shot of the sky.

Portrait: Artist Research - Cristina Otero

Cristina Otero

Cristina Otero is a Spanish photographer currently living in Madrid, she is known for her work of self portraits. Otero started photography at the age of 13, and by the age of 15 she had her very first solo exhibition at the Kir Royal Gallery. 

Throughout my research I came across Cristina Otero, there were different elements of her work that I found quite inspiring, her work can come across as quite dark but shows realistoc elements of what people could be feeling on the inside, from looking at her work I get the interpretation that she is trying to show us what we wouldnt normally see about someone when we first look at them.

 While Otero's work seems to come off as dark and realistic, there is also vunrebility in the work from what I see, we are shown something that we would not expect to see, we are seeing something way deeper than what we actually see on the surface.

What I think I like most most about Otero's work is that a lot of it comes of as dark and something we would not expect to see, however there are times where she would use bright and vibrant contrasts to showcase something completely different. 

Initial Idea

Initial Ideas Development

Idea 1

One if the first ideas that I first had was to have something to do with the beach, this is because I have always loved the beach and spending time at the beach, I also grew up around the beach. I would of at first liked to have filmed in Scotland where I spent a lot of my childhood, however that was not possible as I would need to be there for about a week and I would have no way of getting myself or my actors there. So I decided any beach would be good enough.

When thinking about the beach, I though how would I be able to fit it into my self portrait, I then thought that I would like to have photos of me from my childhood added in, and then I thought how I like taking walks down the beach.

So the final idea for this was that I would be walking down the beach and I along the way I would find baby photos of myself scattered around, further along the walk the more pictures I found, the older I got in them, the last picture that I would find would be the most recent pictures of myself. 

Idea 2

Another idea that I had was to create a morphing video, I always found this types of videos interesting and to be able to do one of these videos for myself would be fun, I have enough pictures of myself from when I was younger to be able to do this, I would start of from when I was a baby and gradually morph the pictures into who I am today. 

Idea 3

The last Idea that I had is very similar to the first one, I have always been into collages, I thought of having pictures of me hanging around a room from my childhood, however I would have things that I enjoy doing around the room too, things such as photohraphy, having my camera in the room with some of my photography around the room, photos of me with friends together, music, just the general things that I enjoy doing in my spare time. 

Ideas

While researching what I could do with my self portrait film, I was watching many different videos trying to get some inspiration on what I could do, I then came across this video, its a video that shows how a young girl has gown and changed over the years of her life. The technique that had been used was the morphing technique.

Before starting any of my research, I was thinking that I would like to use this technique when creating my self portrait, I think it would be a nice way to show a way of change. I have many photos of me from my childhood so the video would be something that I would be able to create, I also feel this would be a fun way of showing how I have changed and who I have become.

Idea Development

While researching and thinking about what I could do for my self portrait film, I came across this short film on YouTube, I was intrigued to watch it so I could see what other people had created when making self portrait films.

This is a film by a guy named Tom Thompson, I came across this short film randomly, when watching the film I found that the ideas I thought of have some similarities to this film, I want to be able to express who I am through the film that I will be creating.

In my own film I would like to express who I was and who I am now, I though of maybe using some photos from when I was a child to now, this shows who I am and how I have changed. I think this would be a simple but effective way of illustrating change and helps to express who I really am.

Group Portrait Project

Group Portrait

During class we were asked to get into groups of 4/5 and make a 2-4 minute self portrait video, this was to give us different ideas and would allow us to experiment when it came to making our own self portrait videos.

I think this small project went really well, at first I thought it was going to be quite hard, with having four different directional styles and inputs, however we all found a way to work together and we were all able to all get our ideas out. We began to brainstorm all the different ideas and found that we all had similar ideas so this made it easier to come up with our final idea. 

We came up with some ideas based on time and how our personalities portray who we are, when it came to the filming and our end result, it didnt exactly end how our brainstorming was. Instead we just went with the flow while still kind of sticking to our brainstorm. 

When it came to filming, we all took it in turns to film each other, so we each had time to practice what we wanted to do, it was important for everyone to be able to get the shot in focus, to make sure we had all the shots in focus we used the features Zebra and Peaking. I found that the shooting went really well, we had a lot of space in the room and we chose a room with big windows so we had a lot of natural light. 

With the end result I was quite happy with how it actually turned out, even though it was very different to what we had originally planned, I liked the way it turned out, it was something different to anything ive done before, I never knew how to edit the way we did so it was good to learn a new way of editing things. 

I liked the idea that we used when we put different points of our faces together in the edit to make it one face, I think this worked really well and is something that I would like to try again.